One known type of information storage device is a disk drive device. FIG. 1a illustrates a conventional disk drive device 200 and shows a magnetic disk 101 mounted on a spindle motor 102 for spinning the disk 101. A voice coil motor arm 104 carries a head gimbal assembly (HGA) 100 that includes a slider 103 incorporating a read/write head. A voice-coil motor (VCM) is provided for controlling the motion of the motor arm 104 and, in turn, controlling the slider 103 to move from track to track across the surface of the disk 101, thereby enabling the read/write head to read data from or write data to the disk 101. In operation, a lift force is generated by the aerodynamic interaction between the slider 103 and the spinning magnetic disk 101. The lift force is opposed by equal and opposite spring forces applied by a suspension of the HGA 100 such that a predetermined flying height above the surface of the spinning disk 101 is maintained over a full radial stroke of the motor arm 104.
FIG. 1b illustrates a perspective view of the slider shown in FIG. 1a in a bottom view. As illustrated, a magnetic reading/writing head 116, which is used for realizing data reading/writing operation of the slider relative to the disk 101, is formed on one side surface of the slider 103. The slider 103 has an air bearing surface (ABS) 117 facing to the disk 101. When the disk drive device is in operation, an aerodynamic interaction is generated between the ABS 117 of the slider 103 and the rotary disk 101 in a high speed, thus making the slider 103 floating over the disk 101 dynamically to perform data reading/writing operation.
To make the slider read data from or write data to the disk successfully, the slider is required to have a good flying stability. Manufacturing accuracy of the ABS of the slider is a key factor to influence the flying stability of the slider. Higher manufacturing accuracy of the ABS can make actually manufactured slider ABS be closer to its ideal value in physical dimension, and accordingly, flying parameters of the slider during flying process are closer to their design value. Now a slider ABS forming process is described in brief as follows.
Generally, a slider ABS manufacturing process is based on a plurality of slider row bars, each of which is constructed by a plurality of slider bodies. These slider row bars are encapsulated together to form an entire row bar assembly. After being processed, these row bar assemblies are separated from each other and finally each of these row bar assemblies is cut into separate sliders. FIGS. 2a-2b show a slider row bar used for forming sliders. As shown in the figures, the slider row bar 2 has a width W and a thickness T. The slider row bar 2 has a first surface 3 to form an ABS and a second surface 4 opposite to the first surface 3. The ABS is formed by processing the first surfaces 3 of the encapsulated row bars 2 using photolithography and vacuum etching method in sequence.
In above manufacturing process, the overall flatness of the first surface of the encapsulated row bars has a big influence on manufacturing accuracy of the slider ABS. More concretely, if the overall flatness is high, the later-formed ABS will suffer less distortion in shape, and accordingly, the ABS will achieve a higher manufacturing accuracy. Therefore, the slider can obtain a good flying stability, and the disk drive can achieve a good flying performance. In related art, to improve the overall flatness, a method in which the first surface (ABS forming surface) of the slider row bar is taken as datum surface for bonding the row bars together for a photolithography process is used. Now this method is described as follows.
As shown in FIG. 3, a conventional method for bonding slider row bars comprises the following steps: forming a holding device having a sticky surface (step 101); providing a plurality of slider row bars, each slider row bar having a first surface for forming an ABS and a second surface opposite to the first surface, and securing each slider row bar to the holding device such that the first surface facing the sticky surface (step 102); bonding the slider row bars together via an encapsulation glue to form a slider row bar combination (step 103); providing a carrier and attaching it to the second surfaces of the slider row bar via an adhesive (step 104); and removing the holding device (step 105).
Here, the holding device is used as a temporary carrier tool for temporarily carrying the slider row bars. It is necessary to remove the holding device away from the slider row bars when the whole manufacture process ends (i.e., the abovementioned step 105). In foregoing conventional method, the holding device is immersed into a special solution such that the sticky surface lose stickiness due to resolving action, and consequently, the holding device is separated from the slider row bars. However, during immersing period, as the slider row bars are also immersed into the solution, the slider row bars are extremely possible to be damaged by erosion of the solution. In addition, in the steps 103 and 104, both curing processes of the encapsulation glue and the adhesive take a certain time respectively, and since the two steps are not performed at the same time, the encapsulation glue and the adhesive cannot be cured at the same time, thus resulting in time waste and finally lowering overall production efficiency.
Thus, it is desired to provide a method for bonding slider row bars to overcome the above-mentioned drawbacks.